Stop Staring!

Stop Staring! is a fantastic American clothing company that was "founded on the idea of timeless and classic dresses, and rockabilly clothing. Stop Staring! is inspired by silver screen glamour icons such as Audrey Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, Rita Hayworth and Joan Crawford."

My rather unreliable memory is telling me I first stumbled across Stop Staring at Modcloth, one of my favourite online stores. Although this may or may not be true, it does make sense, as they are usually selling at least one or two Stop Staring! pieces at any given time.

I think out of all the vintage inspired/recreation clothing labels I know, Stop Staring! has got to be my favourite. Their designs are consistently gorgeous, with lovely detailing on every dress.
The wearability of their designs ranges from 'probably could wear to (fancy) work' styles like these:

(L-R) Paris Dress in Navy US$126.00 at Stop Staring!; Paris Dress in Black with Pink Flower US$137.00 at Stop Staring!

(L-R) Classic Ashley Dress in Black, US$145.00 at Stop Staring!; Manhattan Dress in Black, US$94.95 at Daddy-O's

To crazy sexy dresses like this one:

Lolita Dress, US$122.00 at Stop Staring!

To sophisticated dresses for evenings out:

(L-R) CocoD Dress, US$154.00 at Stop Staring!; Vogue Glamour Blush Dress in Grey, US$141.00 at Stop Staring!

And dresses for all those moments in between:

(L-R) A-line Doll Dress, US$138.00 at Stop Staring!; Puff Doll Dress, US$65.00 (on sale) at Stop Staring!

(L-R) 30s Sexy Bombshell Dress, US$126.00 at Stop Staring!; Doll Swing Dress, US$96.00 (on sale) at Stop Staring!

I guess what I'm saying is that if you were looking to live and breathe that burlesque/rockabilly period, a la Dita von Teese, well, Stop Staring might not be a bad place to start.

And although I couldn't find any photos of her when I quickly flipped through their site just now, I'm pretty sure it was Staring! who first made me aware of the gorgeous pin-up and cheesecake model Bernie Dexter (who in my book, is way, way cooler than Dita von Teese). So big points for that.

Of course, in these trying economic times, one must at least attempt to appear sympathetic to the concerns of the proletariat (myself included) and so I tell you that, as a long suffering student, even without factoring in shipping expenses and conversion to the useless Australian dollar, I probably could not afford to buy any of these right now. Well... maybe one. But I suspect I would be eating a lot of Mia Goreng for a while afterwards.